


At the Mirk and Midnight Hour

by Eienvine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/M, Fae & Fairies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22268779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eienvine/pseuds/Eienvine
Summary: A long, long time ago it was, when the fairies stole away the younger son of Lord Odin of Asgard and left a changeling in his place.
Relationships: Loki/Sif (Marvel)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 70





	At the Mirk and Midnight Hour

**Author's Note:**

> In a recent discussion with CallistoNicol, I mentioned that making a deal with Loki would be like making a deal with a fairy: you have to be very careful what you say or he's going to find a way to twist your words. And then I thought about it more and realized, he's actually like a fairy in a lot of ways. And so this story was born. Thanks to CallistoNicol, as always, for beta reading.

. . . . . .

A long, long time ago it was, when the fairies stole away the younger son of Lord Odin of Asgard and left a changeling in his place.

Lord Odin supposed it was because his son, like all his line, was blessed with shining golden locks and eyes like the sky, and ‘tis well known how the fairies love such babes. His lady wife Frigga blamed herself, for a hard pregnancy and a hard birth left her recovering in her bed many weeks, so they did not baptize the child when they should have, and ‘tis well known that such babes are ripe for the taking.

But the old nursemaid Eir, who had seen more winters than her lord and lady combined, knew that on the day the child was born—Hallow’s Eve—Lord Odin, returning home with haste to see the new babe, had led his troop of horsemen through a sacred circle of oaks, and such an affront, on such a day, could not go unanswered; surely ‘twas the cause of the fairy mischief.

But however it came about, when the nursemaid Eir went to bed one night, the child in the cradle was sturdy and healthy and golden as the sun, and when she awoke, the child in the cradle was dark-haired and sickly and pale as moonlight.

For three months, the lord and lady did all they could think of to appease the fairies: they set out offerings of bread and milk and shiny trinkets, and they ceased the ringing of church bells in the village. But the Fair Folk did not reappear.

In the meantime, they treated the changeling as they would their own child, for Frigga had a loving heart, and a touch of fae blood running through her, and could not bear to see harm coming to the child. The child cried constantly at first, but soon became attached to the lady of the manor, and would sit happily in her lap for hours.

Finally, she went to her lord. “Our Loki is not coming back,” said she with tears in her eyes. “But this changeling child has done nothing wrong, and is in need of a loving home.”

Lord Odin had his doubts, for he knew well the usual way to deal with a changeling: to mistreat it or endanger it until the fairies came take it back. But he could deny his wife nothing. So they kept the child, swearing the old nursemaid to secrecy, and telling all others that their son had always had dark hair.

They had the changeling child baptized—he squirmed when the water touched him, but was otherwise silent—and took every precaution with their firstborn son, Thor, in case the fairies should want to do further mischief: iron crosses on his walls; iron locks on his doors; iron pins in his clothes; ash boughs nailed around the windows; church bells ringing in the streets of the village; and always, if he went outside, his coat on inside out.

The precautions worked: Thor was safe from the fairies.

And the real Loki Odinson did not return.

. . . . . .

“You are loved,” said his lady mother when she rocked the little changeling to sleep, for her pure heart quickly grew to accommodate this little usurper, who, as she said, had done nothing wrong.

“You are loved,” said his lordly father when he visited the boy, for though he feared the creature and mourned the loss of his true son, he would not risk his wife’s wrath by treating it unkindly.

“You are loved,” said his princely brother, who never noticed the sudden change in his baby brother, being still only a little child himself.

And the little changeling child had no reason to doubt them.

. . . . . .

The changeling child grew, wonderful and strange. He was wise beyond his years, and could converse intelligently with the lord and lady when Thor was still mired in the halting speech of a young child. He also showed an affinity for magic, and Lady Frigga taught him what she knew of magic in secret, so that he could learn to control it; it would not do for him to accidentally betray himself in a moment of anger.

The false Loki Odinson was as unlike his adopted father and brother as could be. Like all men of their line, Thor and Odin lived for battle and conquest, their blood stirred by the sound of the drum and the fife. Loki dutifully trained with the bow and learned to ride a horse, but when training was done, he hurried back to what he loved best: his mother, and the tales told by his old nursemaid Eir—tales of trolls and goblins and kelpies, tales of the Wild Hunt and the Will o’ the Wisp and the Green Man, tales that filled his heart with a strange yearning he could neither name nor understand.

For all this, though, he loved his family very sincerely, and the Lady Frigga and young Thor loved him the same way.

All was not well with the lad, however.

Lord Odin had never quite learned to trust the fae creature that had taken the place of his son, and he suggested to his lady wife on more than one occasion that it was not too late to test the notion that treating the changeling poorly would convince it to leave.

And the lad was met with little love outside of his brother and mother, for, being not quite human, with a not-quite-human heart, he had no talent for earning the love of mortals; nor had he inherited the gift that so many of his kind are born with, of charming mortals with sweet, insincere smiles. Thor, on the other hand, earned love from all without even trying, and as the years passed, the gap between them grew larger and larger: Thor was loved, charismatic, talented, and charming, while Loki was strange, secretive, unsocial, and all too clever.

Sometimes, when yet another attempt at making a friend or conversing with a villager had fallen short, Loki admitted to himself that he felt as though he did not belong in the manor. Perhaps he did not even belong in that world.

(“It’s not too late,” Odin told his wife, “to keep trying to get our Loki back.”

“It _is_ too late,” Frigga snapped.)

. . . . . .

“You are loved,” said his lady mother when she tucked him into bed at night.

“You are loved,” said his lordly father, mostly to placate the thing that had taken the place of his son.

“You are loved,” said his princely brother, when they played together and took their meals side by side.

How he wanted to believe that was true.

. . . . . .

When the false Loki Odinson was ten years old, his father sent for an old friend to come to the manor and lead his troop of armed men. The man was called Tyr, and he brought with him a daughter, also ten years old, dark-haired and lovely, and far more interested in the martial arts than was expected for a young girl.

Her name was Sif, and by the end of their first meeting, she had stolen Loki’s not-quite-human heart.

Sif acted as a bandage on the relationship between the Odinson brothers. Thor had never stopped seeking to spend time with his brother, but Loki had grown resentful as it became increasingly clear that the people loved the older Odinson and barely tolerated the younger. But Sif would brook no refusal, and any time she got the idea that the three of them were going to play together, she was sure to carry her point. They pretended to sword fight in the yard, and listened to Loki tell stories, and played hide and seek in the manor and in the village.

(But never the woods; both Loki and Thor had been forbidden from ever entering the woods alone. If they had to travel away from the manor and the village, they were to travel only on well-marked roads, with an armed guard. Loki had recognized the tone with which his mother said all this; it was the same tone she used when she spoke to him in secret of magic. So, though he found the instructions stifling, he did not question them.)

Those were happy days the three of them spent together, for the next five perfect years; Sif seemed truly to enjoy Loki’s company, and sometimes he even dared to think she preferred him to Thor, something that had never occurred before. Some days she would seek out his company without including his brother, something that only his mother had ever done up to that point.

On such days they would play together in the Great Meadow behind the manor, or tell each other stories, or he would read to her from the manor’s meager collection of books. She was not allowed to touch these books, for they were rare and extremely expensive; besides, her reading skills were very rudimentary, just enough to stumble through her prayer book. But she loved to listen while he read to her of far-off lands, of mathematical treatises, of historical battles, of the lives of saints. And then they would discuss what they’d read.

“I hope I am not boring you,” he said after one such discussion when they were fifteen.

“Loki, you could never bore me,” she said with her characteristic forthrightness. “You have opened up a whole new world for me with your words. No one else has ever done such a thing.”

The self-doubt that was beginning to soak into his very bones caused him to cast his eyes down. “Because I am so unusual, so unlike other boys.”

“You are better than other boys,” she said fiercely. “Loki, you are clever and thoughtful; you make me laugh. You do not fly into rages, the way my father does. You listen when I speak and do not brush my opinions aside because I am a girl, the way the other boys do. You do not sulk when I beat you in a foot race or a sword fight, the way Thor does. I would not like you to be anything but what you are.”

Loki carried those words close to his heart, like a talisman, for many months. For the first time in his life, he did not feel like an outsider, a stranger, a guest in his own home.

But things change; it is an inevitability of this world. Tyr increased Thor’s martial training, for he was nearly a man and might soon find himself in battle, and Sif begged to be allowed to train with him, for she had long loved the thrill of a fight. Odin and Frigga found her wish to be amusing and unobjectionable, so they granted their permission, and Sif became Thor’s dedicated sparring partner.

Before long, this was taking up all of their time; Loki saw them still at mealtimes and in the evenings, but their days of whiling away the whole day together were long gone. Thor still embraced him and called him “brother,” and Sif sought him out at meals and told him often that she missed spending time with him, but the pertinent facts remained the same: Thor and Sif spent all their time together, and in that time they became the dearest of friends, and Loki felt that there was no room for him in their circle.

Loki’s loneliness was so palpable that he went to his parents and asked to receive the same training that Thor and Sif received—not because he cared for it, but because at least then he would be allowed to spend time with his brother and his friend. The answer was no; Odin still worried about the wisdom of teaching this fae creature how to kill, and Frigga worried about her delicate little scholar being injured in such training.

So Loki kept to himself, mostly curling up in his chambers with his books, and he found himself alone once again: once again a stranger in the world he lived in.

. . . . . .

“You are loved,” said his lady mother when she sought him out for conversation, gently admonishing him for never coming to see her anymore.

“You are loved,” said his lordly father, who was slowly learning not to fear that the changeling child was part of some fairy plot that would spell doom for the people under his protection.

“You are loved,” said his princely brother, when he wasn’t busy training or spending time with his new best friend Sif.

He struggled to believe it.

. . . . . .

The summer that Loki was seventeen, he broke his mother’s cardinal rule, and went alone into the woods.

It had started at breakfast, when he once again asked his father to be allowed to learn sword fighting, and his father once again refused. His heart full of pain, he finished his meal and then went to the solar, where he knew his mother could usually be found sewing with her maids. But when he arrived, he heard his father’s voice coming from inside the room.

The topic was marriage for Thor. He was nineteen years of age, nearly twenty, and it was high time to be thinking of such things. A match that would bring a financial advantage was desirable, of course, but Frigga and Odin, their hearts soft for their son, agreed that they would rather Thor married a woman he held in affection.

Frigga said that she did not know who such a woman might be, and Odin laughed. “Do you not? You are usually more observant than I, my love. Have you not seen how close he has grown to young Sif? She would bring little money to the match, but Thor would certainly be pleased, and so would I: such a fierce young lady would undoubtedly bear strong sons. I will speak to him of it.”

Loki fled from the house then, which was to his disadvantage; if he had stayed, he would have heard Frigga laugh, and inform her husband that Thor saw Sif only as a sibling or a friend, and she felt the same about him.

Loki did not hear it; and as he ran through the manor, he could think of nothing but the horrible truth that he was going to lose his love to his older brother. For who would not choose Thor, given the chance? Thor was handsome and charming; everyone he met loved him. Furthermore, Thor would inherit the manor, while the best that Loki could hope for was that Thor would keep him on as a steward. What woman would choose such a life, when a life as the lady of the manor was available to her?

So distressed was he that he scarcely noticed that he was disobeying his mother’s orders and running into the woods; and he scarcely noticed the strange sensation that prickled at the back of his neck, as though the whole forest was watching him. Deeper and deeper into the trees he fled, until he reached a swift-running stream, and was too fatigued to jump over it. So instead he sat on the grassy bank of the stream, under an eildon tree, and in time he lay down on the little mound behind him so that he could watch the tops of the trees sway in the wind, and before long he was asleep.

When he awoke, he was not alone. A man stood on the other side of the stream, unlike anyone Loki had ever seen—tall and slender and angular, with sharp features and delicate bones. His hair was long and dark as midnight; his skin was like moonlight, so pale as to almost look blue where shadows hit it. He was dressed in a long, green cloak, and his expression was a strange mix of fascination and faint derision.

Loki sat up quickly, embarrassed to have been caught in a sulk.

“Are you lost, boy?” asked the man in musical tones.

“No, I—” Loki glanced behind himself, back the way he’d come. “I live back that way.”

“Yes,” said the man. “At the manor, isn’t it?”

Did this man already know him? “Yes.”

“And how do they treat you there, boy?”

A strange question, but one he found easy to answer. “Very well.”

“Very well?” pressed the man. “That is all?”

“That is all,” said he, for it was true. He might not be loved by the people of the manor or the village, but he was never mistreated by them. “I am treated well. I want for nothing; I am never subjected to a raised voice or a raised hand. My mother, in particular, could not be kinder.”

“You will vouch for your mother that way?”

“Indeed. No one could be better or more deserving of praise.”

A thoughtful frown furrowed the man’s brow. “Interesting,” he murmured. “I shall have to think on that.”

One strange comment after another.

“But if you are not mistreated, what brings you out to the forest in such distress? Have you not been warned that this can be a dangerous place?”

“I have been,” Loki confessed, “though I have seen little to prove such a claim. I came to . . . have time to myself.”

“To pour out your feelings in private,” the man guessed, and leaned in closer, peering at Loki as though attempting to read his very soul. “Is it a lady? It often is.”

Loki kept his face neutral, but the man read the truth there anyway. “And why do you not make this lady your own? You’re a handsome young man, if I do say so myself.”

His shoulders slumping, Loki confessed, “She is intended for my brother.”

“Ah, yes,” said the man, his tone commiserating. “Brothers can be troublesome indeed.” He stepped even closer to the water then, and smiled broadly; for a brief moment, Loki thought the teeth in that mouth looked too long, too pointed, like a wolf’s—and then he blinked, and he was looking at a man with a perfectly normal smile. “If I were you,” said the man softly, his voice just louder than the burble of the stream, “I would take him walking along the sea-brim.”

That was one of the ballads his old nursemaid Eir would sing to him, so Loki understood immediately, and frowned. “I’m not going to kill my brother,” he said testily. “Not even for her.”

“Pity,” said the man with an elegant, careless shrug. “I find it solves many problems.”

Who was this strange man who appeared so suddenly in the woods, and who so blithely suggested murder as a cure for all ills? Suddenly uncomfortable, Loki stood from the grassy bank. “I should go home,” he said. “They’ll be wondering where I am.”

“Don’t go just yet,” said the man, and reached toward him. For a moment Loki feared he would leap across the stream and attempt to stop him from leaving, but the man stopped at the edge of the water, apparently unwilling or unable to go farther.

“I must,” Loki said. “How very good to meet you.” He bobbed his head, and the man smirked.

A dark sense of foreboding prickled at Loki’s back as he made his way out of the forest, and several times he had to force himself not to break into a run.

Never had he been so glad to see the manor’s walls up ahead of him. He would not go into the woods again any time soon.

. . . . . .

“You are loved,” said his lady mother, who saw the new hardness and distance in her son’s demeanor with great grief.

“You are loved,” said his lordly father, whose realization of the boy’s good qualities and utter innocence in fae matters had come too late for his resentful son.

“You are loved,” said his princely brother, but his increasing duties around the manor only served to make his younger brother feel more and more abandoned.

He did not believe it.

. . . . . .

Four months later was Hallow’s Eve, as well as the anniversary of Loki’s birth (both the real Loki Odinson and the false one, as luck would have it).

The manor celebrated with a feast in his honor: smoked venison and herring pie and roasted apples and all his favorite foods. It was held early, so as not to attract the attention of the fairies, if they had already started their Hallow’s Eve roaming.

When night had fallen and the dishes were all cleared away, the guests left. But the house of Odin, along with Sif, lingered in the banqueting hall to drink ale and to enjoy each other’s company. Around them, the servants moved through the manor, opening all the doors to let the dead pass through, as was tradition.

“This has been lovely,” Loki said.

“You sound surprised,” laughed his brother.

“It’s only that—I suppose it has been a long time since I had an evening quite like this.”

“Because you are always leaving as soon as a meal is done and hiding yourself away in your chambers,” Thor said.

“Indeed,” said Sif. “I come looking for you, and always I am told that you have locked yourself away in your room and are admitting no visitors.”

(“You are loved,” thought his valiant friend often, but even one as brave as she struggled to say such things to a young man who spent less and less time with her these days.)

A good, healthy heart would accept those statements as the expressions of love that they were. But Loki’s not-quite-human heart had grown twisted with resentment and fear, and he doubted the truth of what they said. And he wondered when he would be forced to suffer the announcement of their engagement. Nothing had been said of it since that summer day—at least, not that he heard—but he felt certain it was coming. Who would not want to marry Sif, after all? And who would not want to marry Thor? And he was certain it would break his heart when the announcement finally came.

Just at the mirk and midnight hour, a sound came from the stillness outside the open doors: hoofbeats, far distant. It was not an unusual sound, so the gathered party thought little of it until suddenly there were three figures standing in the open doorway, framed by the darkness outside.

Loki had his back to them, so he did not see them appear, but he felt a dark prickle at the back of his neck, in the same moment that he heard Frigga’s sharp intake of breath. He had felt that strange sensation before, so he was not surprised when he turned and saw that one of the figures in the doorway was the man from the forest. Beside him was a woman who very much resembled him in build, coloring and clothing; behind them was a broad-shouldered man, too much in darkness to make out any of his features.

Odin scowled on seeing these interlopers, but Frigga, with her trace of fae blood, knew instinctively who they were, and she spoke before her husband could say something foolish and curse them all.

“My lord and lady,” she said, and stood, and swept a graceful curtsey, as one would give a queen. “What brings you to honor us with your presence this night?”

The man smiled. “You invited us, in a way,” he pointed out, gesturing at the open door, and Loki suddenly knew what they were.

“The Fair Folk,” Sif whispered beside him.

“Quite,” said the man. “You can call me Laufey, my wife Farbauti. Oh, fear not, silly mortals,” he said when Thor started to his feet. “We mean you no harm tonight. In fact, we have come to make amends, and restore what was lost.”

The fae lord and lady stepped into the room, and the man behind them followed them into the light. Now that he could be seen, he turned out to be a handsome young man, golden haired and blue eyed, who looked remarkably like Thor.

Frigga’s gasp confused Loki, but far more confusing was Odin’s tremulous exclamation: “Loki?”

The man who thought of himself as Loki Odinson looked at his lordly father, but Lord Odin’s gaze was fixed on the newcomer.

The lady called Farbauti addressed Frigga. “We have kept an eye on the changeling child, and were surprised to see that never once did you mistreat him—unusual, for your kind.”

A seed of fear sprouted in the changeling’s not-quite-human heart.

“In return, we have never mistreated your child.” She gestured at the young man Odin had called Loki, and the seed of fear in the changeling’s heart blossomed into terror.

“I had the opportunity for a conversation with the changeling child this summer,” continued Laufey.

And the false Loki Odinson finally, finally understood. An icy cold anguish gripped him.

“What changeling child do you speak of?” Thor demanded.

The fairies took no note of him. “He confirmed that he had never been mistreated, and that you, Lady Frigga, had been particularly kind to him.” Laufey gestured at the lady of the manor, who inclined her head.

Here he hesitated, clearly reluctant to say more, so it was the true-born Loki Odinson who stepped forward and said, “And they realized that meant that they owed you a kindness. So they have decided to let me come home.”

Frigga began to weep. “Loki, my son,” she said, and the false Loki felt his heart break in two.

“Actually,” said the young man, “in the Fairyland, I have been known as Baldr. It is the name I am most accustomed to, and I believe I will keep it, for the fairies have come to respect it, and there is a protection and a power in that.”

“Baldr,” said Odin, as though testing the shape of it on his tongue. And then he smiled broadly. “Welcome home, my son. My Baldr.”

“I have another brother!” Thor exclaimed in amazement.

“No,” said Laufey, “you have only ever had one brother, who I have returned to you. The one you call Loki was born to my wife and myself.” He turned to look at the changeling child. “Your name among your people, my son, is Helblindi.”

Thor and Sif gasped quietly.

The changeling did not care for the name Helblindi; it belonged to some other being, not to him. “Why did you bring me here and steal their child away?” he cried.

Laufey shrugged. “We had long wanted a human servant, and this one was so beautiful; we could hardly resist.”

“But then why leave me here?”

“Don’t you know the laws of your own people, boy?” demanded Laufey. “Balance in all things. If something is taken away, something must be given.”

“But your own child?” the changeling cried.

“We have plenty of children,” said Farbauti carelessly. “We did not think we would miss you much. Besides, among our people, it is accounted a great honor to be nursed by a human mother. You should be thanking us, boy.”

“But now you are grown,” said Laufey, “it is a far better thing we offer you now. We will take you back to Fairyland, and you will join us in our moonlit revels, and live most happily.”

“What?” Sif demanded.

“You would take him?” demanded Frigga.

Laufey lifted a hand to stay them. “Do not anger me,” he said so blandly that it took a moment for the changeling to recognize it for the deadly threat that it was.

The humans lapsed into fearful silence.

“So come along, boy. The night is young and we have many miles to tread before this Hallow’s Eve is over.”

The changeling stared at his natural parents. What they offered him sounded lovely—to learn to do magic without fear of retribution! to perhaps discover a place where he could feel as though he belonged!—and yet he could not help remembering the careless way his parents spoke of giving him up, and the callous way Laufey had once suggested he kill Thor. He might not belong in the manor. But neither did he belong with these strange, otherworldly, cruel beings. And to give up Frigga, and Sif, and even Thor and Odin—it did not bear thinking of.

“And if I choose not to go?”

Laufey snarled, his teeth suddenly long and pointed, like a wolf’s. “Weren’t you listening, boy? Balance in all things. If something is given, something must be taken away. We owe the lady her son back, but we cannot return him without taking you away. You’re wasting our time; we are only given one night a year to walk so freely in the human lands, and you shall not ruin this for me.”

He lifted a hand, and in the time it took the changeling to blink, the three fae creatures were suddenly transported somewhere new.

The changeling looked around himself and realized they were at the crossroads at the other end of the village—Miles Cross, the villagers called it. Three horses were standing there, their reins looped around an oak tree: one black, one brown, one milk-white. And with a thrill of terror, the changeling realized that the true Loki Odinson must have ridden in on one, and that the false Loki Odinson was expected to leave on the same steed.

The moon shone brightly, turning the road bone white, but the shadows reached for him with merciless claws, and the darkness beyond was full of teeth and blood. He could not possibly follow these creatures into that night. He turned to run.

Immediately he found himself magically bound, unable to move his feet.

“Stay put, boy,” snarled his father.

“Don’t you know how many mortals would kill for the chance you’re being given?” said his mother.

Fear was threatening to choke him, but he forced it down. “I don’t want to go,” he said with all the strength he could muster. He wished he could use magic to escape, but Frigga had only ever known enough to teach him to control what magic he had, not to use it.

“We told you,” said Laufey. “These are the laws of our land.”

“But you are the fae,” he tried. “Stories abound of how you can slither out of binding agreements, when people are not careful about their words. Surely something can be done here.”

“I suppose,” shrugged Farbauti. “Someone must be taken, but I suppose it doesn’t have to be you. We could take a village child, perhaps.”

“No!” The cry was torn from his throat. The people of this village had done little for him, but still, he could not live with himself if he bought his freedom by consigning a child to the same darkness he now feared.

“It must be you, then,” shrugged his mother, and turned her attention to her brown steed.

“There is no way for me to stay, then?” he demanded.

“I wish there was, if this is how you are going to carry on,” sighed his father. “But no, the trade has been made. The only thing that could save you now is if a mortal claimed you, and passed the trials that are sent upon such a foolish person. But as I see no mortals here . . .” He shrugged and, like his wife, turned his attention to his black steed.

The changeling looked around desperately, but Laufey was correct: the village was hidden from view by a stone wall and a handful of trees, but even if he could see it, he had no doubt it was dark and still; its inhabitants were fearful of this night, when the fairies were abroad, and would be hiding in their homes. And no one would come from the manor for him. Why would they? The lord and lady had their son back: their true son, flesh of their flesh and blood of their blood. No doubt the house of Odin was pleased to be rid of the monster that had darkened its halls for eighteen years.

Still, he strained his ears.

All was still; all was silent, except the babbling of a nearby brook.

He bowed his head, and was pleased the darkness hid the single tear that tracked down his cheek.

It took some time to prepare the horses, but finally Laufey came over to grip his son’s arm and lead him to the milk-white steed.

And that was when the changeling heard the most beautiful sound he could imagine.

“Stop!” shouted Sif.

The three fairies looked back toward the village to see the warrior’s daughter appearing around the edge of the stone wall, running toward them at full speed—she’d always been the fastest of everyone at the manor.

“What is this?” Laufey demanded.

“You cannot take him,” Sif declared, breath heaving, as she finally came to a stop between the milk-white steed and the changeling. “I claim him.”

The changeling’s sometimes-all-too-human heart leapt in his chest.

“That is, if you wish to be claimed,” said Sif.

The changeling nodded furiously. “I do,” he whispered tearfully.

And now more footsteps were pounding toward them. “Leave him be!” Thor bellowed, coming into view now. “I claim him.”

“And I claim him!” shouted Frigga, following not far behind.

“And I claim him,” said Odin, appearing after his wife. The true Loki Odinson—Baldr, as he would apparently like to be called—made up the end of the group.

The changeling’s heart was in his throat.

Laufey looked over at Baldr. “Your doing, no doubt,” he sighed, and the changeling understood: Baldr, intimately familiar with fae ways, had told his birth family of where Laufey and Farbauti could be found, and how to stop them from taking the changeling away. He felt a strange burst of affection for the man whose life he had stolen.

Baldr merely shrugged.

Now the fairies looked amused, their pale faces shining and visible in the moonlight. “You all claim him, do you? Well, we shall see.” Laufey turned to Sif. “Girl! You claimed him first, so you shall be tested. What is Helblindi to you?”

“His name is Loki,” said Sif steadily, “and he is the man I mean to marry.”

Loki’s legs nearly gave out in surprise.

“A fair claim,” chuckled Laufey, releasing Loki’s arm and stepping away. “Well, come and lay hold of him, then, if you can.”

Sif resolutely strode forward and grabbed Loki’s wrist.

What happened then was unlike anything the house of Odin had ever seen.

Instantly Loki was transformed into a wriggling esk; this must be the test that Laufey spoke of, thought Sif. Well, she was not afraid of a little newt, so she held on tight, careful not to hurt the creature.

And then, in the time it took her to blink, the esk was transformed into an adder, hissing and baring dangerously sharp fangs.

“Hold fast!” she heard Baldr yell, so she reached out quickly with her other hand and grabbed the adder behind its head, so it could not strike.

Behind her, she heard Odin call “Good girl!”

Another transformation: this time a bear, and Sif’s hand was now gripping the scruff of its neck. It turned black, beady eyes on her, and her heart began to pound.

“Hold fast!” Baldr yelled again. “He shall not hurt you!”

So Sif stood her ground while the bear snarled at her.

“Oh, hush you,” she said. “I know you’re very impressive, but there’s a man I mean to save, so I cannot be afraid of you.”

Another transformation: this time a lion, and Sif’s hand was buried in its mane. She had never seen a lion before, but she knew it from a drawing in the village priest’s Bible. The drawing did not do the creature justice, however; never before had she seen such coiled power in an animal.

Frigga gasped quietly.

Sif swallowed hard. “For Loki,” she said quietly, to give herself strength.

The lion turned and roared, the breath of it blowing her hair back, the strength of it rattling her chest. Its open mouth was large enough to swallow her head.

But she thought of Loki, held fast, and forced herself not to fear.

Another transformation: a red-hot rod of iron, which seared the flesh of her hand. Sif had never felt such pain before, and she could not help herself: she opened her mouth and she screamed and screamed. She saw Thor run toward her, but she shook her head fiercely at him. She would not lose Loki to the Fairyland now, not when she was so close to saving him.

Another transformation: a live coal, glowing red in the darkness. This pained her as greatly as did the last, and it was with great relief that she heard Baldr yell, “Now throw it into the stream!”

This she did very happily. The coal hit the water with a great splash and a hiss, and suddenly it was a coal no more, but Loki, naked as the day he was born. Thor ran to the stream, pulling off his cloak to wrap it around his brother, and Sif gratefully plunged her burned hand into the icy water.

“Loki!” cried Frigga, and then Odin said, “Is he all right?”

“He’s all right!” cried Thor, as Loki finally got his feet under him and turned to face the fairies who’d given birth to him.

“Is this really what you want?” Laufey demanded. “To live the mundane life of a mortal? To age and fail? For if you stay here, Helblindi, that is what awaits you: you will live and die like any dull mortal.”

Loki looked up at Lord Odin and Lady Frigga, smiling warmly at him, and he felt Thor’s arm still around his shoulders. “My name is Loki,” he said firmly. “And it is what I want.”

“Fine,” said Laufey disdainfully. “Stay, then.”

Baldr stepped forward then, knowing the ways of the fae well, and knowing that all things must be explicitly spelled out and understood. “He has been claimed and won fair and square?”

“Yes, he has been claimed and won fair and square,” sighed Laufey.

“The Fairyland relinquishes all claim to him?”

“The Fairyland relinquishes all claim to him.”

“And the fairies will leave him alone?”

“The fairies will leave him alone,” said Laufey, and climbed onto his horse. “Come,” he said to his lady wife, seemingly having already forgotten that he’d just lost a son, “let us not waste all of this night here. There is much to see and do.”

So saying, he whirled his horse around, and he, his wife, and the riderless milk-white steed galloped down the bone-pale road and vanished into the darkness.

For a long few moments, all was silence and stillness, and then Loki let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“Oh, my son!” exclaimed Frigga, and rushed forward to embrace him, Odin not far behind.

“I don’t understand,” said Loki said to the lord and lady. “Why are you here? Why did you claim me? I am nothing to you. Your true son has returned to you.”

“And we are so happy to have him home,” said Odin, putting a hand on Baldr’s shoulder. “But you are our son as well.”

“After eighteen years, are you still questioning that?” asked Frigga.

“Yes. Absolutely. Entirely,” said Loki.

Thor pulled Loki into a tight embrace. “I wish I’d known you felt so distant from us, little brother,” he said quietly. “I would have reassured you that I will always love you, and you will always be my brother.”

Loki returned the embrace in something like wonder, until his eyes met Baldr’s over Thor’s shoulder. “And you,” he said. “You helped them? You told them how to save the creature who stole your life?”

“You were a wee babe,” said Baldr. “You did not mean to steal my life any more than I meant to relinquish it. And I have seen the Fairyland; I know the life they meant to return you to, and I would not wish it on anyone.”

“It is a bad place?” Frigga asked, sounding aghast.

“Pleasant is the Fairyland, but an eerie tale to tell,” murmured Baldr, half to himself. And then he gave her a pained smile. “It is beautiful and wondrous, and harsh and cruel, and above all, not a good place to be an outsider. As Helblindi would have been, returning after so long away.”

“Loki,” corrected Thor, Frigga and Odin together.

Loki’s heart warmed.

“But I hope,” said Baldr carefully, “that there still might be a place for me here?”

“Of course,” said Odin.

Frigga pulled her lost son into an embrace. “I count myself blessed beyond measure,” said she, “to have three sons now.”

And then Odin embraced Baldr, and then he embraced Loki, and Loki thought that after tonight, he would learn to release the resentment he still held in his heart for his father. After tonight, all loyalties and affections had been made abundantly clear.

“Sif!” Loki suddenly remembered, and turned away from his father to rush to his friend’s side. 

“Are you hurt?” Frigga called to her.

She held out her hand to show the skin unblemished. “Whatever fairy magic they used, it did not last. I am uninjured and feel no pain.”

Then she turned to Loki with a smile. “I am pleased that my claim worked,” she said quietly.

“Sif,” he breathed. “Dearest Sif, loveliest Sif, did you truly—were you sincere—”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And yes.”

“Why did you never—I had no idea.”

“Why would I have? You’ve been withdrawing from me for months now; I thought I was alone in feeling this way.”

His hands came up to cup her face. “You are not. Dearest Sif, I love you with all that I have within me.”

“And I you.”

“But Sif, you know what I am. You know that I am not . . . normal, I am not right—”

She gripped the sides of his tunic. “You are perfect, Loki,” she whispered. “You are clever and thoughtful; you make me laugh; you listen when I speak; you do not try to make me into someone else. I would not like you to be anything but what you are.”

Loki was trembling, but he mustered up the courage to say, “Then I suppose I had better marry you, or the fairies shall believe you lied when you claimed me.”

“I suppose you had better,” she agreed, and kissed him.

It was perhaps the first time in Loki Odinson’s life that he’d felt truly at home.

. . . . . .

And so they went back to the manor, and they cleared out a room for Baldr, and they told the servants and the people of the village that he was Loki’s twin, who had been kidnapped by bandits when he was a baby; Frigga had been so laid low after the birth, and Baldr looked so very much like Thor, that no one questioned the story. It transpired that Baldr, despite having no prior training, took to the sword like a duck to water, and Tyr began training him to take over his position when his fighting days were behind him.

Loki and Sif were married at the village church less than a month later, and she moved into his room at the manor, and Odin instructed his steward to start training Loki to take his place when he was gone. When he was not studying with the steward, he was spending time with his new bride, or with his family, and reveling in the joy of knowing he was wanted. Under his family’s careful tutelage, he learned to be more personable and kind, and to make friends among the servants and the villagers.

They put out milk to appease the fairies every night. And when babies came, they took every precaution, with iron and ash boughs, but the fairies never returned to cause mischief at the manor.

And with his family around him—his _true_ family—Loki Odinson was finally happy.

. . . . . .

“You are loved,” said his lady mother, when they walked together through the forest they no longer feared.

“You are loved,” said his lordly father, who had learned to value and seek the wisdom and insight of his otherworldly son.

“You are loved,” said his princely older brother, who now sought his company often, so that Loki could not forget again that they were brothers.

“You are loved,” said his golden-hearted twin brother, whose life he stole, but who was pleased to open his heart to all his new family, no matter their origin.

“You are loved,” said his valiant wife, whose deep affection was steadily filling what used to be an empty hollow in his chest.

And he believed them.

And Loki and his family lived happy and content for all their days, and if they have not died yet, I suppose they are living still.

. . . . . .

fin 

**Author's Note:**

> Because I love footnotes:
> 
>  **Changelings:** Stories of human children being stolen away and replaced with magical creatures abound around the world. It is assumed that in many cases, this was a way to explain birth defects, neurological differences, and the like. Unfortunately, in some cultures, mistreating or threatening the life of the child was indeed believed to be the way to get your “real” child back, and there are tragic stories of people doing just that. In other stories, the way to get your child back was to do something so bizarre—often involving egg shells, for some reason—that the changeling would exclaim in surprise and therefore give away the fact that it’s not a normal child.
> 
> Changelings are often too intelligent to pass for human children, and they tend to be unpleasant and not well liked—often, they’re very aggressive and rude. I thought many of those aspects matched Loki well. :D
> 
>  **Sleeping on a grassy bank, under the eildon tree:** References to the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer (Child 37), who fell asleep on a grassy bank under the Eildon tree (whatever that is) and woke up to see the Fairy Queen watching him. She carried him off to the Fairyland to be her paramour. Really, very foolish of Loki not to realize that you should never fall asleep in a forest where fairies abound.
> 
>  **Take him walking along the sea-brim:** A line from The Perilous Gard, one of my very favorite novels, and a great story if you’re interested in historical fiction and/or fairies. When the Lady in Green says that line, she is referencing the ballad The Twa Sisters (Child 10), in which two sisters love the same man, and one kills the other over it: “And when they came unto the sea-brym / The elder did push the younger in.” The dead girl’s body is made into a harp that sings about her murder. Old ballads can get pretty dark.
> 
>  **Hallow’s Eve:** Modern Halloween is made up of old pagan Samhain traditions overlaid with Christian Hallow’s Eve/All Hallow’s Day traditions (whether the Christians Christianized Samhain, or whether the Christian holiday began as separate from Samhain but the two were eventually conflated, is a matter of some debate). What is certain is that both are holidays for remembering the dead. Samhain was considered a time when the boundary between worlds was very thin, and the dead could pass through into the land of the living; one of the traditions related to this was the idea of leaving the doors of your house open so the dead could enter (you might even make a feast for them, and leave the doors open so they could come enjoy it).
> 
> Wait, you’re saying, I thought we were talking about fairies. We are, but there’s always been a connection between the fairies and the dead. Fairies, especially Irish ones, are said to live underground in hills and mounds, even in tombs. Many Irish tales speak of the fairy mounds being open on Samhain, allowing fairies to roam, the same way the doors to the land of the dead are open, allowing the dead to roam. The Irish banshee—“woman of the fairy mound”—foretold death. One characteristic of fairies that occasionally appears in stories is that they have the faces of dead mortals. More informed folklorists than I have reached no conclusion about what it all means, but it does seem that to the old-timey European mind, there was a connection between the two.
> 
>  **Returning the stolen child:** One fascinating story I found reference to (but could never find the full text of) is a Swedish one, in which trolls steal a woman’s child and leave a changeling in its place. The woman is advised to mistreat the child to get her own back, but she refuses and treats the changeling kindly, as it is just an innocent baby. The trolls see that she has never mistreated their child, so they are kind to her child. In anger over her kindness to the changeling, the woman’s husband leaves her, and when the trolls see the sacrifice she’s made for this changeling, they end up returning her real son to her. I thought that being that kind to a changeling seemed like something Frigga might do.
> 
>  **Claiming someone the fairies have taken:** The ending of the story is taken from the ballad of Tam Lin (Child 39), possibly the best-known fairy-related British ballad. (This is also the source of the title of this story.) The fair Janet wants to claim her lover Tam Lin, who’s being held captive by the fairies (and who speaks the line “Pleasant is the Fairyland, but an eerie tale to tell”); she goes to Miles Cross at midnight on Hallow’s Eve when the fairies are riding past, and pulls Tam Lin from his milk-white steed. He goes through a number of fearsome transformations, but Janet holds tight and wins him back.
> 
>  **I suppose they are living still:** The traditional German ending to a fairy tale is “wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute”—If they haven’t died, then they are living still today.


End file.
